Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. On the episode today, we have John Strisower. John, welcome. Hello, good to be here. It’s good to have you. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Sure, be happy to. So my name is John Strisower. My background is in computer science, electrical engineering, network engineering, serial entrepreneur for 35 years in different industry segments and 10 year, three time Tesla owner operator. Have been really fascinated by watching the evolution of electric vehicles and the global change in the automotive industry as a result of Tesla’s foray into EVs.
And started a company called kilos Inc, which is aimed at providing ultra fast charging initially along U.S. interstates to help automakers deliver a satisfactory experience to consumers, because we are working globally to electrify the transportation fleet and as a 10 year, three time Tesla owner operator, I can tell you that the current charging experience is not a mainstream charging experience in the United States. Okay, and do you mind going into what’s the main driver for why you started this particular business? Well, I think if you take a step back and look at what’s happening globally today, we are remaking our global energy system and everything that goes with it. So transportation is going with that. Electric is changing dramatically. We are decentralizing and de-fossilizing our electric grid around the world.
And when you take this cumulatively and look at it, it’s the largest shift in human history economically and it is the strongest market timing and strongest market signal that has occurred since I’ve been alive and I would argue while I will be alive. So this is an absolutely gargantuan shift that’s happening. And I know that I can make a contribution to improving the charging experience. And so I sort of looked at this as 120 years ago, the early days of the oil industry when people are sitting around thinking about maybe we should have gas stations, where should those go? We get a chance to remake that experience now, but doing it for zero emission vehicles and that is being done via a combination of hardware and software, which is where my expertise and passion is. And I love EVs. I love how they work. I love how quiet they are. I love how reliable they are. I can see a world where we are without fossil, without the noise and pollution and much more efficient transportation.
And I think I know what’s what’s what’s a great experience for consumers and what’s not. So it made a lot of sense to me. The market opportunity is giant. I expect there will be 10-20 good players in the us market alone will be one of those. Um, and so it’s, you know, it’s a, it’s an enormous market opportunity. Um, it’s one of the few businesses where um as much energy as you can make, you can sell. So it’s not like you have to go out and figure out a market to sell your product. Product is energy. So step one of our company is about helping to electrify the transportation fleet. But the second step is to power that electric energy with renewable. So ultimately our goal is to renewable power transportation. It is a lofty goal. So I can completely understand, I suppose it from from an opportunity perspective why it would be a massive opportunity. Why do you think, I mean I haven’t heard many companies or players wanting to get involved in it thus far?
So why do you think that’s the case? Well, I think they’re actually there are quite a few players in it. There’s there’s already probably 10 pretty good sized players in the US market. Tesla of course being one globally. But there is electrify America which is a Volkswagen unit, there is tv go which came out of Enron um a former energy company. There are um a variety of other companies like Volta and some of the others, there are at least five that are publicly traded standalone companies. There’s companies that have entered the space and been acquired by oil companies like Shell. Um, so there are a number of significant players already in the market. Tesla is a player that courses proprietary. It’s working on opening up and adding adapters and standards like CCS1 in the North American market for dc fast charging but the reality is that there are way too few of them today and that what is being deployed is not being deployed in the right place and it’s not the right technology. So I’m here to tell you, it’s not a mainstream experience for the consumer yet and all the players that are in the market despite having multiple publicly traded, um, north of billion dollar market cap companies, the solution for the consumer is simply, is not there.
And so by that, I mean that the very most basic thing that you need as a consumer does not exist. There are not enough of them. First of all, the ones that are there are not fast enough. And the experience is horrible, meaning that data suggests that about one in three charge sessions for non Tesla owners fails in the US market, that is an incredibly bad experience for consumers. So I think there are a number of significant players already in the market. Um, I don’t think there’s a lot of people that are interested in getting into the market because it’s a significant lift to do so it’s capital intensive. It is fraught with a lot of challenges and thus far the companies that are in the business are all losing money. So does that sound like a place you want to go? And maybe nature and maybe that’s the nature of your question, but I think that the way it’s been approached today is just not the right way to do it. And I think we’re approaching in a different way in a way that will provide the consumer experience, the way they needed in a profitable fashion and the cool graphic in the in the background of your of your video.
Right? The question is is around what’s your vision for your company? If you if it went exactly the way you wanted it to, how would it look? Uh the near term goal five year goal is to have 5000 of those cool looking things behind me which are kilos charge stations have 5000 of those across the US Interstate system. And each one of those has four ultra fast charging plugs on it. So that’s 20,000 ultra fast charging plugs along the us interstate system. That compares with Tesla’s current supercharger network of about 10,000 plugs. So it’s a pretty lofty goal. Um each one of those plugs will deterministic lee deliver more energy than any of the existing plugs on the U. S. Interstate system today, including Tesla and we are manufacturing these and delivering and installing them as opposed to the way that the majority of charging stations are put in today which is in ground infrastructure connected to transformers and or substations that have taken a couple of years to engineer and put in place by the local utility.
So we have a different approach to solving the charging problem, a different type of technology and the technology that is more reliable and more compatible with the Bs he driven by the ethics at all or is it not a driver for you? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely ha there there are a whole lot of problems that we face and that many people are not even aware of and you know when you look at water, when you look at soil and you look at oceans, when you look at um seafood and farming and agriculture, I mean everywhere you look, we see big industry doing things that are profitable but highly destructive to the planet. And yes, I am very driven by by ethics and by in particular sustainability is the word that everybody uses, but I don’t really like the word sustainability because sustainability to me simply means we won’t do any more damage and that’s a very poor goal.
I think instead, what we should be looking at is regenerative practices that leave the earth better then we found it um, and that’s easy to do given how much damage we’ve done to the earth so far. So I think very much so, I also realized that there are trade offs that have to be made. So if you’re going to have E V s you’re going to have to mine minerals to make batteries and that is going to have some ecological impact. Um, so you know, it really comes down to choices and it comes down to what the efficiency of those choices are when you look at E V s in comparison to petrol based vehicles, you find that they are three times as efficient um, Just in terms of the energy consumption versus um transportation or versus versus mileage. So they’re much more efficient and they are zero emission if you’re using renewable energy to power them.
Versus not only C. 02 emissions from fossil vehicles but worse the the other pollutants that don’t get a lot of air time but the other pollutants are actually one of the leading causes of death around the world. So when you look at air pollution and we’re not talking about CO. Two which is which is indicted in climate change. But what I’m talking about is actual toxins in the air, particular toxins in the air that are a result of burning fossil fuels that’s causing literally millions of deaths around the world every year. It’s a point which I like to pick up on whenever climate change is quote unquote debated. It’s almost for me I A 100% on board with that topic but it’s almost like that’s a future problem. Whereas there is a major problem right now which electric cars essentially It’s not 100% solved as far as I’m aware. But in terms of the pollution in major cities for example it pretty much solves that problem by more straight away.
If everyone drive electric is that accurate in your view? Well as I said the the E. V. Is um just to put it into actual numbers. So people understand when you look at an E. V. To buy an E. V. In the U. S. Market. At least the E. P. A. Measures mileage on those vehicles on what they call E. M. P. G. Which is the equivalent mpg. So if that vehicle was gas powered, what would its mileage be? And what you find is that most E. V. S. Are around 100 E. Mpg. And so what that tells you right off the top is that look, this is about 100 MPG vehicle versus the other vehicles that are called it 33 MPG. So it’s three times more efficient straight up. So even if even if an E. V. Was actually burning gasoline it would be creating a third as much pollution. So it’s it’s three times more efficient just out of the gate. Now the argument that a lot of people make is, well, yeah, but you’re burning fossil fuels to create electricity. You’re burning, you’re burning coal to create electricity.
So you’re still creating pollution to the extent that you are creating electricity from fossil fuels. Yes, that’s true. Um, but there is much higher efficiency and less pollution per kilowatt hour generated and in large scale systems like that than there are in small internal combustion engines polluting in the form of thermal energy generation in other words, um even if you use coal to power E. V. S. It is far less polluting than fossil fuels are in transportation being used for um, for combustion and the longer that’s why I said my company’s vision is actually two steps. The first step is electrifying the fleet. The second step is making sure that that power comes from renewable sources. And there’s a reason why it’s two step. It doesn’t just start with renewable and you can certainly get into those details if you’re interested. But um I think that once you have an electric fleet it becomes much much easier to get rid of the the fossil fuels that are used for creating electricity.
And these are things that are happening simultaneously to the electric grids around the world are decarbonization and they’re decentralizing they’re becoming distributed renewable. The cost of solar energy today is lower than any other form of energy generation. So when you compare solar in most markets around the world it actually costs less per kilowatt hour generated of solar energy than it does for the operating costs for existing plants that are fossil our coal based. So I mean it’s it’s an absolute zero brainer that we should be doing solar today. So if you had one question to ask and 10 Years from now someone would be able to tell the answer but its present moment. What question would you ask, what would you want to know if it was about your business 10 years from now? Um I need to I need to noodle on that for a second. I need to kind of understand what is the question of the question? So 10 years from now, I would ask somebody a question and I could get the answer today.
Yeah, yeah. Um, boy, that’s a good question. Uh, I have some, um, I have some, some, What’s where I’m looking for predictions of what’s going to happen 10 years from now. And I’m curious about some of those predictions, whether they actually happen or not. Um, so one of the predictions I have is that fossil fuels are going to continue to get more expensive from where we are for a couple of reasons. One reason is that they have obviously fallen from favor for all the reasons we’ve been talking about. But secondly because the global financing for fossil fuels is drying up. There’s less and less money being applied to it. And the people that are in the fossil fuels business are realizing that they are going to have enormous stranded assets, trillions of dollars of stranded assets that they’re going to have to do something with and find some way to pawn them off on somebody else that’s willing to take the tail risk on stranded assets in the fossil business.
So I’m projecting and predicting that we’re going to see ever escalating costs in the declining market for fossil fuels. So I think that probably one of the most interesting questions I would ask is what is the price per gallon of diesel or gas, 10 years from now. And um, I would be very curious to know that answer. Well um Now 10 years from now I might be able to look back. Have you got any predictions by the way? Um I haven’t really thought about 10 years out specifically. Um, but I’m I’m going to say North of $10. Okay Well I’ll have to like find a way of getting an automated email sent to me in 10 years time or something so that I can come back and talk to you about that on it. And if all went well with your business in 10 years time, what would it look like? Well we would in five years have 5000 of these stations across the us interstate system. Um, we have goals to help with freight and uh so we would have um the larger brother of what you see behind me that’s in 40-foot shipping containers.
That’s doing megawatt charging for autonomous fleets of trucks may be autonomous platooning trucks. Our technology will be used in 10 years time and um in markets outside of the US so I would see that we will have um These deployed in other countries besides the us in 10 years. We have a longer-term goal of renewables as I mentioned. So in 10 years time I’m anticipating that we will have large adjacent solar and wind farms that are directly DC coupled to these charging systems so that we are making good on our goal of renewable energy powering both cars and trucks. We will have these charging systems at E. V. Tool landing pads. So if you’re familiar with the V tools which are electric vertical takeoff and landing basically electric helicopter drone type devices, there’s Um probably 10 companies that are competing in that space right now for Um to to call it five passenger E.
V. Tools that are going to need landing pads that have ultra fast charging associated with them. We want to be in that business too. We want to have maritime charging so that um marinas can have electric boats. So basically everything that’s in the transportation sector, we’ll have our charging technology. Um I think that in 10 years time we’re gonna see radically new battery um technologies deployed in E. V. S. And E. V. Tools and in trucks, things like solid state batteries and maybe grafting batteries or other forms of batteries that are higher energy density that are not flammable that are less environmentally damaging. That charge much, much, much faster and therefore require and take advantage of much faster charging infrastructure than its existing today. And that we are building. So I see in 10 years time, a world where essentially all of the charging infrastructure that exists today Except for level two charging home charging, that should be slow charging and that makes sense that slow charging and will remain slow charging because it’s it’s designed to be overnight charging which should be adequate into the future.
So level two charging I think is good, But the fast charging part of that is going to be completely reimagined, reengineered in 10 years time for all these different types of transportation. And in terms of, let’s say, if someone did want to get into this business, not necessarily your business, but let’s say someone is in line with the ethics meaning it’s, it has their values, there’s opportunity in it, which, and there’s in my view, as you say, this math market meaning there’s, there’s, there’s loads of opportunity to innovate. What would you recommend they do if they have no prior experience and perhaps not any, not no capital, but limited capital to start. And it would be, let’s say helpful to your business going forward if they were in that business. What springs to mind for you there? Uh, my advice to somebody that wanted to start a business like ours with nearly no capital in the field, not necessarily matching your business, but in, in a growth market like yours.
Um, well I would pick a niche that is something that you’re passionate about and something that you can gain early customer traction with to build something up. Um, that is the most certain path to success, especially in economic times like we have now trying to capitalize a business, like what we’re building is really, really difficult. It is, it is by far the most difficult part of it. So the the idea is um pretty easy to come up with, lots of people have great ideas um and even the technology to deploy a great idea is not all that hard, um capitalizing it is incredibly difficult and as long musk is famously said, building a machine that builds the machine is the more challenging part of the goal. So if you’re manufacturing something, building the plant to manufacture a product is actually more challenging than building products. So I would say, you know, capital and the machine that builds the machine are the two things that really are big challenges, but if you were trying to start something that you’re passionate about um you know, so for example, let’s say that you’re passionate about solar, you can start with small solar fields that can be deployed um for residences or businesses and grow business around that incrementally.
Um I think that’s a much easier path to a successful outcome than starting with the Gargantuan goal and and trying to deploy it. So an example of that would be um getting some, let’s say, limited amount of solar energy going to a business and saying instead of doing what you’re doing now, buy power from us and it will be, it will reduce your costs, that kind of example, right? And you know, maybe today, maybe even more importantly than the power aspect of it is actually the E. S. G. Aspect of it, the business being able to say look we have you know 100 panels on the roof. We’re doing something. Um so an example of that that I see is are you familiar with Los Angeles? Are you in in the southern California market often or ever? Um I think my knowledge there would be a beginners level L. A. Okay well let me just put it this way. It’s a massive city. Of course it’s in sunny southern California, almost arid desert, sunny California. And I’m always amazed when you fly into any of the airports in the L.
A. Market. What you see is a sea of commercial rooftops that are that are white rooftops that are designed to reflect the sun back into the atmosphere so that it reduces the air conditioning burden. So you see the sea of white rooftops and I’m always amazed that that’s not covered with solar. I mean it’s such an opportunity so you know an example of what I’m talking about here would be somebody that’s passionate about that could actually make it their life’s work to go and cover those roots with full power. That’s a pretty simple goal. You figure out to figure out the recipe to do that. You go and get a couple of commercial companies that want to be able to say hey look when you find L. A. X. Or Burbank or our santa Monica any one of these airports and you see that that sea of white rooftops. This one’s got solar panels on it, that’s my business. So I mean I can see where this would play well for everybody that cares. It is economically it makes sense and more and more it’s going to be important from the standpoint of business continuity too.
So I mean I think there’s an enormous opportunity to do something there that you could start pretty incrementally. I know you’ve probably got a lot on your plate but are you not tempted by that? Um I am tempted by that but not near term. And um as we get into the renewable energy phase of our business, I’m very tempted by it because one of the things that differentiates our charging solution from all the other players that are out there, maybe not all of them but the majority of the larger players in the U. S. Market anyway would say that um we are an energy storage based solution. So that box behind me and my picture there um is full of batteries and that’s not like what the others are the others are grid connected. They were just basically hanging on the grid relying on the grid to provide the energy to charge cars. We don’t think that’s the right approach because you can’t deterministic lee deliver a charging experience to a consumer especially if you want to upgrade in the future to faster and faster charging. That’s not a very upgradable solution but batteries are.
So I actually think going back to the top of our call when I mentioned that the entire planet is going through a global energy transformation. That is what’s happening at the real roots of the whole thing. We’re converting from fossil energy to non fossil energy. We’re converting from fossil energy to renewable energy. And that transition is going to require batteries. That’s the only solution that’s really known to mankind that’s really feasible today. Yes, there’s all kinds of compressed air and hydro in certain markets and gravity system. So there’s all kinds of ideas that people are coming up with. So by no means saying that there aren’t other ways of doing it, but today, what’s commercially available? It’s batteries and batteries are. When I look at this from the big picture, I see that batteries are a critical component to all of it. Batteries are the way that we’re transitioning from fossil to something else. And so when I look at that sea of rooftops in Los Angeles, what I’m tempted by is not so much solar panels, although that’s a critical component of I’m actually tempted by the batteries because that’s what really gives you the ability as a business owner to have resiliency in your business, not only the economic benefit of solar, renewable energy, but the ability to not pay demand charges on your electric bill and perhaps most importantly the resiliency it gives you from power outages, You referenced Elon musk in this conversation and prior one that I watched of yourself and you’re an early Tesla a doctor what your thoughts on Ellen in relation to let’s say business innovation.
Well clearly probably one of the most innovative business leaders of of certainly the modern world. Um I think the lawns concepts are actually relatively simple and pretty straightforward. They are rooted in just you know, really basic solid thought processes. And so you know, he has made comments that I think are great comments to think about. For example, he has said when you look at the United States, you could power the entire United States by 100 100 mile by 100 mile block of solar panels And that would require a one mile by one mile block of batteries. So when you think about that in perspective, okay if you could power this entire country with that tiny little postage stamp footprint of batteries and solar, why isn’t that the goal for the U. S. But when you look at what Iran is doing in terms of um you know, things that are not so simple that are in some ways maybe really crazy far out there ideas like continuing the species by populating mars.
I mean that is pretty pretty wild and out there neuralink and um Hyperloop and the boring company and SpaceX and I mean all these things that that alan has gotten involved with, they’re all rooted in pretty basic concepts but actually delivering some of those things is really complex. Um I have been a full self driving um advocate from beginning in my early serial number model s and all the way back to the very beginning um I’ve been in the beta programs I’ve watched along musk present at company functions when it was a small company and there was hundreds of people there are not thousands or or more and I’ve watched how this has evolved. Um I think Alan has got really good basic concepts, he’s obviously smart and he’s willing to put in the effort to make these things happen when I look at TVs and what Tesla is doing.
I realize that the artificial intelligence data that’s been gathered by that fleet of vehicles that’s out there around the world with sensors bringing data back to the mothership day in and day out is such an enormous advantage that Tesla has over the other automakers and the manufacturing of batteries is such an enormous advantage that I think musk has created an overall global enterprise or family of enterprises that have enormous advantages over over will be competitors coming into the market that I think um he made a comment that years ago sounded crazy which was we’re going to build something that’s more valuable than Apple and I say he’s on target to prove that. So yeah my hat’s off to long must yeah thank you for the answer. Are you aware of the law change in the UK regarding electric vehicles?
Tell me what it is. I was, I was just thinking about the law change in the U. K. That I just read today or maybe yesterday about phasing out the incentives for E. V. So maybe this is something different. Tell me about the law that you’re thinking about. I’m sure you’re more up to date on these types of things than I am. But the limited knowledge I have one of which being that in 2030, um, in the U. K, petrol and diesel cars aren’t allowed to be created anymore, meaning no new cars, you can still drive around in your old car. But in terms of kind of opportunities and where the market is going, I think this sounds pretty interesting business to be in from, from your perspective It is and I’m in Washington State, which is also 2030 California is 2035, Washington bumped up five years. Um, I think in actual fact, as we’re seeing this industry, accelerating those numbers will become irrelevant and the markets will drive it there faster than that anyway, because the cost curves are such, I already told the solar energy is cheaper than any other form of energy period.
Full stop. There’s no argument about that unsubsidized solar energy is the cheapest energy in the world period. So, you know, if you just think about it from selfish economics, we’re gonna see solar dominate and Solarz can be paired with batteries. We’re gonna see E. V. S overtaking ice and diesel vehicles, gas and diesel vehicles for simple economic reasons. And the legacy automakers have been very reluctant to turn the corner because they knew as soon as that happens, everything they’ve built over the last 100 years is gonna have to be retooled and they are going to be at a disadvantage to the new E. V companies are coming in. But now that the tide has turned the legacy automakers are scrambling to figure out, okay, how do I shed my gas business and become a player in the E. V business? Because everyone knows where it’s going. When you think about an internal combustion engine vehicle, It has the, the engine and drive train is approximately 2000 moving parts.
When you compare that to an E. V that has 20 moving parts. It’s clear that the um, reliability of an E. V is gonna be significantly better than um, in an internal combustion. And I’ve already said that thermal generation to um, two locomotion is much less efficient than electric. So, you have reliability, maintenance costs and, you know, Internal combustion has had over 100 years of cost improvement to get to where it is today, pretty reliable. In fact, remarkably reliable. Given 2000 moving parts, remarkably reliable And actually very cost effective. It’s pretty impressive. You can, you can build something well that’s 120 years of cost improvement has gotten there When you think about it, We’ve only been at reasonable scale E. V. S since musk has been doing this for 10 years and the industry is just starting. You give us give the E. V. Industry another 10 years and I can tell you, we will positively be it vehicles that are far more cost efficient than internal combustion and all the internal combustion stuff will go away.
So I think that the 2030 and 2035 timelines that were put out their first by governments and then by the automakers themselves are, are important timelines only because they set strong market signals that allow the industry to get behind it. And that’s why I said earlier in the call that there has never been in, in my lifetime on entrepreneurial market signals that are that strong, that defined and that consistently aligned from government to industry to consumer, which they are today. Um, so I think at the end of the day, those um, those timelines, the government imposed timelines will become irrelevant because industry will overtake them anyway. It’s interesting. I’ve not heard that before. Um, so thank you for the answer I did uh, in research for our conversation, you’ve been a entrepreneur for 35 years and I appreciate all the expertise on the electric vehicle industry, but I also recognize that in that longer time frame you probably got some good business principles to share with people.
So general advice whether that be business or entrepreneur, the topic of being an entrepreneur, If you could summarize that down for people, what would you share with them? Um well I think, you know I’ve read a lot of things about um entrepreneurial success and it’s interesting when you look at the single number one most important determining factor for successful entrepreneurial venture, it’s not what school the team went to, although a lot of people think that matters, it’s um it’s really not a lot of things that people would think the number one most important thing is timing and that is one of the things I’m most excited about in this business, the timing absolutely could not be better. Um but in terms of being successful in an entrepreneurial venture, I think first and foremost you really truly do have to be passionate about whatever it is you endeavor to do, because there are going to be many, many times where you are going to be challenged, you’re gonna be challenged financially, you’re going to be challenged emotionally, you’re gonna be challenged in your family and your, you know, you have to really be committed to what you’re doing, you have to have tremendous perseverance, so those that succeed are just dogged, determined and passionate about what they’re doing and um if you combine that with a solution that has the right timing, um you’re very likely to figure out a way to get there.
I think um entrepreneurial ventures start with some concept in mind and they very rarely actually go as planned, which is one of the reasons why a long held hand, it’s becoming more common knowledge that the idea of a fully baked business plan is kind of folly because by the time you’re done writing a business plan, it’s already obsolete and you would have to be constantly rewriting, you spend your whole time rewriting a business plan instead, that’s what I kind of mentioned earlier, if you wanted to start something, go and start it, go and acquire 10 panels and go put them up somewhere and get somebody to, you know, figure out some business model that works for that and then get another 10 and, and you know, those are the kinds of businesses that ironically are pretty likely to succeed because you’re figuring out the solution in real time and the solution is not obvious. I mean if you’re going to start a pizza company, that’s something that’s been done a lot of times, then you can go and look to, okay, well the other 400 pizza companies have done it this way and you can figure out that’s what it’s going to take to succeed.
You know, you can look at what’s been successful and figured out, but when you’re doing something new, you know what, it’s not going to turn out the way you plan and you can have a direction where you want to go and ultimate goal of where you want to go, but there’s lots of forces that are going to apply are, are going to be um, you know, inputs on your business that you don’t control, and so you gotta be able to pivot as needed um to ultimately get to where you want to go. Have you got any biggest wins that you’d like to share your business career? Um Yeah, I’ve had um I’ve had some pretty big wins in internet advertising as an example. Um so, you know, it’s kind of funny looking back at it that in my career I have been looking at what the future is gonna be and um, not because I have some crystal ball that’s better than anyone else’s, but just looking at pretty obvious things, you know, um So in an Internet advertising business, I ran it for about, just founded and ran it for about 10 years, I was telling global retailers and media companies that this idea of digital is something that was really going to happen and it’s amazing on the two tails of the customer bases, I was talking to, some of them would say, yep, I get it, I see where this is going, we need to be digital.
So a small percentage of people actually understood that this whole internet thing was going to turn into something and this mobile data thing would be something someday and those people kind of got it and they started figuring out what we have to do to change on the other end of the spectrum, we had people that were particularly in the more senior ranks within these companies that were Not really wanting to be bothered with the fact that the world was gonna be different 10 or 20 years downstream because they were already a point where they’d be retired before that. So they just wanted to manage the retirement and then in between, we have a whole lot of people that we’re thinking about um, okay, well, how does this affect me, where, where, what does this mean to me, what do I have to do? But I was, you know, for a decade telling people that print is in decline and digital is growing and if you wanna be a player in the media space, you’re gonna have to really figure that out and get with it. So, my business was telling media companies and retailers around the world that for 10 years and ultimately 11 media companies banded together and bought my company, which was a good outcome for everyone involved of course.
Um, and those media companies dumped a bunch of money into that company and try to keep it going after I left. And ultimately they created the whole thing. But you know, the idea is just kind of funny that I heard things like, you know, even Bill Gates early on was saying, yeah, you know, the internet thing, that’s, that’s probably a fad that will go away and then, you know, years down the line, even Gates figured out, okay, it’s not a fat, it’s not going away, we’ve got to do something and you know, Gates famously started Applying 10s of billions of dollars to being a player in that space and getting involved in it. Um, so it’s really, it’s fascinating to me just to see how, you know, um, innovation and disruption occurs in industries, but that’s, that’s one of the ones that I’m pretty excited about. Thank you for sharing that any biggest challenges that come to mind. Um, well, I think the biggest challenges are Number 1 1st and foremost our personalities.
So you can really easily have people within your company on your board or investors that are challenging personalities and they can make life miserable. So that is the first thing that comes to mind in terms of biggest challenges. The second one is capitalizing businesses, particularly if you’re trying to do something that is, um, you know, a larger goal of some kind capitalizing it is very challenging because you’re spending an awful lot of your time and energy trying to get investors to finance your vision. And it means telling your story many, many, many times coming, you know, Evangelical about it. And um, it’s, it’s um, it’s at counter purposes to the business of the business. So that’s a big challenge. Um, I think once you overcome that challenge and you’re capitalized to go about your business, that’s when it becomes extremely fun to be an entrepreneur because at that point you actually have the rocket fuel to start watching your vision become a reality.
And at some point um an entrepreneurial endeavor takes on a life of its own. You start bringing smart people into the company that have talent sets, you don’t, and pretty quickly you start seeing the thing, gaining momentum and rolling down the tracks and it’s really, it’s it’s just an incredible rush to see um a business, you know, growing through that phase. So it’s my favorite part is an early stage entrepreneurial endeavor that is financed to achieve its mission and the early phases of growing a team and executing an early customer deliveries and the winds there, it’s it’s just a blast. Would you say that’s where you are now? I would say we’re nearly there. Yeah, we are this, this is an endeavor that is going to require multiple commas in capitalization, let’s see, it’s a big undertaking. Um so we’re not quite there from a capitalization perspective yet, but we have incredible team of people. I mean it’s it’s the best team of people I’ve ever worked with in my life. Um amazing people from different walks of life that have come together in this and are coming together, I mean it’s got new people that are that are joining this enterprise on a regular basis and it’s just amazing that the level of caliber of people um, coming together and so it’s, it’s really fun.
I really appreciate talking to you and I love the business. I’ll be, I’ll be watching very, very intrigued to know how you get on. So do let me know. Is there anything that I should have asked you about today? Well, that’s a good question. Uh huh. I don’t really have an answer for that. I haven’t thought that through enough to give you a good answer. Okay. I did say that I was going to ask you about one thing near the end, which is what success means to you. Have you got any thoughts about that? I do, yeah. I mean, I think I’ve got a pretty clear view of, of what success is. Um, I measure success in multiple different timelines, but in the five year timeline, I want to have 5000 kg stations across U. S. Interstate. Um, the longer term aspirations are that they are renewable energy powered by directly adjacent renewable energy as opposed to some power purchase agreement that says, I’m buying renewable energy that’s distantly produced somewhere else. It’s actually renewable energy powered these systems.
And ultimately that the charging experience is actually improved beyond just reliable, fast charging, but that it is um, renewable energy powered and that it is with surveillance and security and basic services. Like we expected petrol stations today because those are things that, you know, don’t exist in charging stations today. So in the UK shell has come up with first version of what a charging station should really look like. And I agree with that vision, that’s what they should look like. Okay, well I do. It’s not very often I talk to someone and I’m, I feel invested in the success of your company. So I really do hope that you do well. If people do want to know more, maybe connect with you, where do they go? kilows.com on the web. And, it’s a website that will be evolving through time, but it’s a good starting point to show what we’re up to.
And hopefully before very long we’ll be a publicly traded company. So there will be lots of information available there too. And you’ll be seeing our stations popping up along the interstate, so I’d love to have you along for the ride. John, thank you for being a great guest today. All right, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.